prayer.. (as music)
 

I am mystically into chanting and prayer. Either in Rastafari chanting Nyabinghi drum and prayer, or now in the Orthodox Christian chants, I am in love with prayer as music. It is such a soothing spiritual meditation, and personally, I also chant and sing all my own prayers, following the melodies of the Tewahedo tradition to which I have been so indoctrinated.. it is truly beautiful music. also, perpahs the oldest continuous musical traditions are prayer, be it Christian or Buddhist or Hindu, chanting is ancient, it is the presrveation and perserverance of previous generations..

what chants/prayer do you like as music?

Rastafari Nyabinghi 'Burn Down Babylon' ( I-man can't live with out burning fyah on my hand drums, one of the most powerful gifts I was ever given musically or of any other kind was my first nyabinghi hand drum.. my elder sistren taught my the drum beats and the melodies, last groundation i-man helped to seal it up on the Akete drum)

Ethiopian Christian 'Yared's Hymn' entitled Tensa'e Emutan (Christ Rose)

Tewahedo Ethiopian Se'at (the horologium latin vespers)

Latin Vespers Book of the Hours

Byzantine/Greek Orthodox chant

Buddhist chant (some monks chanted this in the parking lot of a restraunt by my house around new years, it was so out of place it only enhances its mystical vibe)

Russian Orthodox Chant

Gregorian chants

Hindu chant

even those good ol negro spirituals Steal Away

all the sacred religious texts, the Bible, the Qu'ran, the Vedic writings and the various Gitas, the Buddhists texts, the fucking Qabbalah, all of these are old world chants, they are songs.

music is a powerful medium for spiritual energy, it brings a religious text or prayer into action, living, powerful.. its a shame that protestants have lost the tradition with their lame and terrible renditions of hymns ..

Does the fella talking about black supremacy in that Nyabinghi one not worry you?

I'll come back to this thread tomorrow with some links. For now, have some Basso Profundo

no, surprising as it my seem to some those are my folks.. when I first went to the university I was in some black studies courses and I was waiting for some militant, pissed off black nationalist to try and tell me what was up.. turns out I was the militant black nationalist ;)

when Rastafari speak of Black Supremacy, they do not mean it in the context as say the KKK or Nazism, rather they mean Black Supremacy within the black man's borders and lands. Nyabinghi say "fire to all who preach racism and yet cross white man's borders.." I can easily agree with black supremacy in black areas, it is a kind of spiritual manifestation of self-determination.. remember Rastafari comes directly from 'africa for the africans' movements in the 1920s

and there was a bit more here than just the nyabinghi, though the nyabinghi does mean quite a bit to me personally..

chanting is a wonderful music, I often wonder why some people feel intimidated even frightened of it.. i was meditating with some tewahedo chants one time on vacation with family, and my grandmother, in a deeply concerned fashion, asked me if I wasn't listening to devil music. it took a bit of effort to seriously convince her!